


Responsibility and other things

by BlackRook



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-07 23:31:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackRook/pseuds/BlackRook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawkeye, Black Widow and their handler</p>
            </blockquote>





	Responsibility and other things

**Author's Note:**

> _Special thanks to Momentary Grace for the beta-reading!_

_He was sent to kill me. He made a different call._

He made a different call. Natasha doesn’t ask why, and she doesn’t ask what he told Coulson to persuade him it was a good idea. Considering Barton is Coulson’s favorite, it was most likely a variation of that age-old conversation:

“It followed me home, Dad, can I keep it?” *puppy-dog look on*.

 “Yes you can, but you’ll be responsible for it.”

 She is Barton’s responsibility for about a year, and then the responsibility becomes mutual.

~~~

 They are the best in the field, but their fields are a little different, and missions where skills of both of them are required fully don’t happen that often. Yet, when Natasha needs/allows proper back up, Clint usually heads it. When she doesn’t, he still tries to be the one to see her in and pull her out. Natasha, in turn, provides or at least checks through preliminary intel for Clint’s missions; and sometimes assists Coulson with media cover-up afterwards. (Because any skill should be learned from a master, and Coulson _is_ the best.)

Budapest is their first honest-to-God joint mission; it’s a success, and Coulson is pleased… right until he reads their reports and debriefs them (separately). He says they give an impression of being on two different missions in two different cities, and then he is definitely _not_ pleased. Definitely and noticeably, and the staff in HQ jokes about ‘golden kids grounded and left without ice-cream’. Jokes have some point, because it’s almost a year before their next mission together. This time it’s Tokyo, and the target is terminated, the contraband secured, the lesson taught and, miraculously, their reports are in sync. Coulson is impressed, Fury receives two grateful and four outrageous notes from various Agencies of various governments and is happy enough to give them three weeks of downtime. While they are on this sort of vacation, surveillance team leaks some mission photos in Agency inner network, and this starts wedding jokes. By the time they get back, the jokes have turned into an ‘are they or aren’t they’ pool. According to rumors, even Fury has bought a slot; Coulson pretends not to notice anything.

~~~

They are the best; it means when they do get in trouble, it’s the best of trouble.

When Natasha misses two check-ins in a row and Coulson pulls Barton off his current op, he doesn’t need to quote Saint-Exupéry to him. He really doesn’t. Because, first, Barton is the only one who can pull a rescue in that shit-hole in Pakistan, where Natasha has apparently run into some of her former acquaintances. (Okay, Coulson himself might too, but it’s better for everyone if Phil is pulling the strings and not getting his hands dirty, and that is experience talking.) And second, it’s not about Saint-Exupéry and responsibility, it’s about partnerships and trust, and some other things top SHIELD operatives aren’t supposed to desire.

Exactly four months after Pakistan, Clint walks into an ambush in Bangkok, courtesy of one soon-to-be-dead rogue CIA agent, and Natasha takes off unauthorized. Of course, by the time she finds Clint, the mission _is_ authorized, and there is a team to cover their withdrawal properly. Back in the States, there is a shouting match between Natasha and Coulson, about how hard an Agent should try to get in touch with their handler in a situation like this. The shouting is rather quiet, though, because it takes place in a medical bay of SHIELD eastern base, near the bedside of unconscious Clint. Also, the argument doesn’t get finished, because Clint wakes up and tells them to shut the hell up. They do, but in the next week there some changes in HQ communications staff, and getting through to Coulson isn’t a problem anymore.

~~~

 Mutual responsibility also means taking care of situation if the other one is compromised. That includes making a final call and seeing it through, if necessary. It’s not written anywhere, but it’s a promise they gave to each other one horrible night in Beirut in the middle of a mission. The mission that involved chemical agents of three different kinds, and cost SHIELD its third best team.

That promise is also one of the things they have never told Coulson, but he knows anyway.

~~~

 Natasha breaks a dozen SHIELD protocols when she is undoing Clint’s restraints in that medical cell on the Hellicarrier, but she doesn’t care. It _is_ her call, and it’s not like the situation can get much worse anyway. She doesn’t want to tell him about Phil, but he asks, and she is still too shaken up herself to hide the truth. Clint nods, and goes to bathroom without a word, and she swallows painfully. She calms herself that Barton is a professional, more so, he is a sniper, so he is able to focus and shove all that psychological crap aside until the battle is over. Oh, there will be plenty of problems afterwards, but… First they have a planet to save, people to avenge and a nasty god to put in his place. Surviving the process will be nice, too.

 The Captain comes in, and they steal a jet, and when they are leaving the carrier Natasha could have sworn she hears a familiar voice.

 “Be careful, kids.”

  _‘Death is not an excuse for being late to work, right, sir?’_

**Author's Note:**

> Saint-Exupéry quote is, of course _‘You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed’_.
> 
> The last line is a loose quote from Max Frei.


End file.
